A project to provide a fruit tree to every child in the CGB Elementary School was recently awarded a student worker by the U of M Community Assistance Program (part of the Uís Center for Urban and Regional Affairs). The Big Stone Area Foodshelf and CGB Elementary School teamed up on this pilot project to give kids access to healthy food, like fresh fruit, by providing them their own fruit tree.

With CAP support, the project was able to hire Megan Mathey, a junior studying Horticulture at the U of M Twin Cities campus. Megan is a native of Rapid City, South Dakota and is president of the Uís Horticulture Club. She has worked in nurseries since she was 14 years old and works summers at the U of Mís Horticulture Research Center near the Arboretum. Megan knows her fruit trees! Megan will be working at the school and visiting our community frequently over the next four months. Families with children in the CGB Elementary School can look for a flyer to come home about the project in the coming days and a survey to help determine what, if any, fruit tree you would like planted at your home.

The CGB kids and fruit trees project has a number of benefits for families and children. In some ways this is a ďgive a man a fish and he eats for a day- teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime project.Ē It is a pilot project to test whether providing fruit trees has the benefits we hope, which are:

Helping with household and community food security Increasing families access to healthy food